Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Botany of Brazil

In the tropics, plants grow almost everywhere. This epiphyte is growing on an electric line.

My birding trip to Brazil yielded more than just birds. The vegetation in that part of South America is lush and dense forests, rich farmland, and lots of edge habitat with viney tangles, giant palm fronds, epiphytes and bromeliads, and every kind of fruit and flower you can imagine.

When the birding got slow in Brazil (which was not often) I enjoyed looking around for interesting plants to photograph. Here are a few of the images I kept, after weeding.

Cecropia frond against the afternoon sky.

The morning dew makes the grasses bow their heads.

The fronds of this vine-like fern were more than 10 feet long.

We ate papayas from this very tree at a restaurant on the Praia da Almada.

A vine's long tendrils reaching for something, anything.

My plan is to share one more brief post about Brazil and then move on to other subjects. If you're interested in reading the full account of my birding trip to Brazil, it will be in a future issue of Bird Watcher's Digest.

Bill, I've been a fan of your blogs for a while and am hoping you can help me. I have a new flock of birds that I can't identify. Can you offer advice on how to get help for situations like this? I have taken lots of pictures of these birds but still can't figure out what they are.Thanks, Joan, Newark, Delaware[email protected]

About Me

Name: Bill Thompson, III

Location: Southeastern, Ohio, United States

Bill Thompson III is the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest by day. He's also a keen birder, the author of many books, a dad, a field trip leader, an ecotourism consultant, a guitar player, the host of the "This Birding Life" podcast, a regular speaker/performer on the birding festival circuit, a gentleman farmer, and a fungi to be around. His North American life list is somewhere between 667 and 669. His favorite bird is the red-headed woodpecker. His "spark bird" was a snowy owl. He has watched birds in 25 countries and 44 states. But his favorite place to watch birds is on the 80-acre farm he shares with his wife, artist/writer Julie Zickefoose. Some kind person once called Bill "The Pied Piper of Birding" and he has been trying to live up to that moniker ever since.